Whitman and Dario

            The similarities between Walt Whitman and Ruben Dario can be noticed when observing their reactions to things in nature. They used nature as a contrast to the human suffering to express that the cause of the suffering of mankind laid within their own mind.    

            Whitman insisted on “a vehemently democratic kind of verse” (Simon 646) and it is reflected in his poem as he wrote: “I am of old and young, of foolish as much as the wise, / … Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse and stuffed with the stuff that is fine, / One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same” (Section 16 lns. 1-5). As he observed animals in nature, he came to admire what he noticed in them: “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained” (Section 32 1). He then stated that he could look at the animals for a long time because “They do not sweat and whine about their condition, / They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, / They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, / … No one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth” (Section 32 3-8). Whitman criticized the self-righteousness and greed of mankind which caused their own suffering. Animals, on the other hand, are content with what they possess and their place on earth, thus they do not suffer as humans do.   

Dario had a similar reaction when facing nature: “The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; / the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing” (lns. 1-2). However, to Darios, the tree and the hard rock are happy because “there is no pain as great as being alive, / no burden heavier than that of conscious life” (3-4). Dario stated that the suffering of mankind came from their awareness of the uncertainty of fate and death. Knowing that death was inevitable to all living things, Dario was strongly disturbed by the fact that one could not predict when it would happen: “To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way, / and the dread of having been, and future terrors … / And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow, / and to suffer all through life and through the darkness, / and through what we do not know and hardly suspect …” (5-9). Unlike Whitman who thought that suffering could be stopped if people could simply be content, Dario believed that suffering came with the consciousness that humans possessed, thus it would remain until death arrive.

Works Cited

Dario, Ruben. “Fatality.” 1650 to the Present. Ed. Peter Simon. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 695. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.

Simon, Peter, ed. 1650 to the Present. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.

Whitman, Walt. Section 16. 1650 to the Present. Ed. Peter Simon. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 649-50. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.

---. Section 32. 1650 to the Present. Ed. Peter Simon. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 651-52. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.